It's a re- telling of an Irish folk-tale, "The Children of Lir" - a compelling story of magic and jealousy and forgiveness, told in plain, vivid words, with a glossary at the back. The only fault I have to find is with Amanda Harvey's illustrations. She does landscapes well, but she's not so hot on facial expressions. On page 25, for instance, where Nuala is supposed to be gazing lovingly at a group of blackbirds, she looks as if she's slavering in anticipation of biting their heads off.Boy readers in the 6-9 age-range would probably prefer Janet and Allan Ahlberg's It Was a Dark and Stormy Night (Puffin pounds 3.99 - a re-issue of their 1993 title), a Scheherezadean feat performed by the eight-year-old Antonio, who has been captured by brigands.

The text is funny and fast moving and the colour illustrations by the sadly missed Janet Ahlberg are witty and full of engaging detail.If you want a book that will appeal to both boys and girls from 6-9, The Independent Story of the Year (Scholastic pounds 7.99) is a likely bet. Here are the 10 winning stories from The Independent/Scholastic annual competition, and there isn't a duff one among them. (If this looks like a deliberate plug for the Indy - well it isn't.) The overall winner, "Toebiter" by Nicola Muntzer, is a tale of a fearsome-smelling creature which lurks under Katie's bed, waiting to catch her off guard and bite her toes. The story is told with considerable verve and has a strong narrative, plenty of humorous tension and a neat, unexpected ending. I also like Simon Cheshire's "The Giant-Sized Yuck", which concerns a talking, moving, man-sized pile of dirt which the Scrubbings family find inhabiting their new house.

My favourite, though, is Rosamund Annetts's "The Black Clogs of Castle Doom", an exuberant parody of a gothic horror story, fantastic for reading aloud. I particularly liked the floorboard that creaks like "the stealthy tread of a pitiless assassin". In style and atmosphere it seems to owe something to James Thurber's The 13 Clocks - and there can't be much higher praise than that.8 Brandon Robshaw's most recent book for children is 'Georgina and the Dragon' (Puffin pounds 3.99).. As an English teacher in an Oxford middle school, Philip Pullman would tell stories, particularly Greek myths to his 12- and 13-year old pupils. He was inspired to do this by the award- winning children's book The God Beneath the Sea, by Edward Blishen and Leon Garfield. "I loved the book and wanted to use it in class, but reading it aloud didn't work So I made up my own version and told that. And it was important to tell, not read, because that engaged me, forced me to get the stories into my head and find a way of acting them out - it forced me into being a storyteller." Pullman reworked classics like the Iliad and the Odyssey for 12 years, three times a year - a wonderful apprenticeship for an aspiring children's writer.